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He’s the Chicken Soup for the Soul guy, Jack Canfield. And at Springtime’s general session, he gave away a hundred bucks to one lucky attendee.

How did he do it? He held up a $100 bill and said “Who would like this?”

Hands shot up all around the ballroom. One person, though, walked up and took it. And that’s the whole point of his presentation: take action. Yes, the person did keep the hundred bucks, which might have been most of Canfield’s honorarium.

So on to a few specifics. In addition to being the Chicken Soup for the Soul guy, he’s the The Success Principles guy, his latest self-help motivational book. There are 64 principles in the book, but he focused on the first and most important:

Take 100% responsibility for your life and results.

This means you have to give up all blaming and all complaining. And no more justifying, defending, or excuse making.

What does this mean?

Here’s his example for giving up blaming.

A guy could go home from work and discover his girlfriend has left him. Just took everything she owned and moved. The guy could react by saying, (and yes, this is the story he told as he told it) “That bitch. How could she do this?” Or, the guy could reflect and say, “Gee, I wonder what I did to make her leave.”

He also gave the formula for this success principle:

E + R = O

Events plus your response to these events equal the outcome.

He gave the story of seeing a sign hanging in a store saying:

“I’ve heard there’s a recession coming. I’ve chosen not to participate.”

The basic message: visualize the outcome you want and just by visualizing it – and believing it possible, you can make it happen.